Down and out in Paris and London Audiobook By George Orwell cover art

Down and out in Paris and London

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Down and out in Paris and London

By: George Orwell
Narrated by: Carl Mason
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Down and out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is an account of living in near-destitution in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp's perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.

©2021 Bookstream GmbH (P)2021 Bookstream GmbH Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction England
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This version deleted swear words which seems silly and childish. The performance was good. The story a plea for the poor.

I love Orwell, but . . .

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They should have left the swear words rather than delete them. Better bring them back. The book is great though

Instructive honest account about life with vagabonds

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excellent book, well narrated but censoring all expletives from Orwell is beyond ridiculous. please undo

excellent book

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Carl Mason has a great voice for narrating audiobooks, but in my opinion, he gets the tone completely wrong with this one. Also, he mispronounces even some of the simplest French words, which I found jarring and distracting.

Like other reviewers have pointed out, it's absurd that a work by the author of '1984' should be censored. I would have much preferred to listen to what Orwell wrote and then make up my own mind about whether it is problematic or not.

For example, I was surprised by a stereotypically villainous Jewish character (who is referred to as "the Jew"). It made me wonder if Orwell had been an anti-Semite, so I did a little online research and found that he repeatedly and unequivocally condemned anti-Semitism, most explicitly in his 1945 essay 'Antisemitism in Britain' (written over a decade after ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’). It's not clear to me if he had a change of heart or if this particular character was never representative of how he regarded the Jewish community in general. To me, these are interesting questions about Orwell as a person, so I’m glad that the publishers didn't delete that too.

I wouldn't recommend it.

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